The 62-year-old will decide today whether the England captain, and his international team-mates Jamie Carragher , Glen Johnson and new signing Joe Cole , should be included for Thursday’s third qualifying round first-leg tie in Macedonia against Rabotnicki. Liverpool’s medical team have advised Hodgson it is too soon to use those players who were on World Cup duty after just over a week back in pre-season training. And the former Fulham manager must weigh up whether it is more risky trusting a largely reserve side to get through to the final qualifying round.

Hodgson said: ‘I will have to liaise with them and [head of sports science] Peter Brukner and make a decision on what sort of team I can put out. It is going to be a difficult discussion between myself and Peter because his feeling is we shouldn’t use any of them and I am going to be tempted to say I want to use quite a few of them. The only players I will take will be the ones that I definitely think will play a valuable part in the game.

‘If we are talking about senior players, it would be players prepared to start the game. I would not take Steven Gerrard there to play for the last 10 minutes as a substitute.’

Meanwhile, Javier Mascherano has returned to pre-season training at Melwood after a post-World Cup holiday. It means Hodgson will finally get chance to discuss his plans with the Argentina captain, who has been heavily linked with a reunion with former Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez at Inter Milan.